The End of Heart Disease

The Eat to Live Plan to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease

"The New York Times bestselling author of Eat to Live, Super Immunity, The End of Diabetes, and The End of Dieting presents a scientifically proven, practical program to prevent and reverse heart disease, the leading cause of death in America--coinciding with the author's new medical study revealing headline-making findings.Dr. Joel Fuhrman, one of the country's leading experts on preventative medicine, offers his science-backed nutritional plan that addresses the leading cause of death in America: heart disease. An expert in the science of food, Dr. Fuhrman speaks directly to readers who want to take control of their health and avoid taking medication or undergoing complicated, expensive surgery, the two standard treatments prescribed today.Following the model of his previous programs that have successfully tackled conditions from diabetes to dieting, Dr. Fuhrman's plan begins with the food we eat. He focuses on a high nutrient per calorie ratio, with a range of options for different needs and conditions. He shows us what to remove and what to add to our diets for optimum heart health, provides menu plans and recipes for heart-healthy meals and snacks, and includes helpful questions for doctors and patients.By understanding heart disease and its triggers, Dr. Fuhrman gives us the knowledge to counter-attack this widespread epidemic and lead longer, healthier lives"--

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I first met Dr Fuhrman about a dozen years ago at a conference and found his concept of maximizing "nutrient density" while minimizing "caloric density" (which he expresses in the equation: Health = Nutrients/Calories) so sensible and easy to understand, that I went right out and bought his book, Eat to Live. For years Eat to Live was my "go to" reference for providing people interested in maximizing their health a framework they could easily use for making sense of the growing body of nutritional science. Although I have read additional books by Dr Fuhrman in the years since, none of them had surpassed Eat to Live -- until now.
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With coronary artery disease our nation's number one killer, The End of Heart Disease joins a growing cadre of evidence -based books offering something much better than the conventional risky surgeries and drugs with horrific side effects that are draining our health care system, while doing little to actually stop progression of this fatal disease. Although Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn's book, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease is excellent too, and his approach has certainly saved and enriched many lives, The End of Heart Disease has some additional and wonderful contributions to make. Esselstyn (and Pritikin and Ornish too) all demonstrated reversal of blocked arteries using a very low fat (10% of calories from fat) diet. While this diet unquestionably improved many lives (as shown in the fabulous documentary, Forks Over Knives) over time some people appear to not do so well on such a low fat diet -- but I was not aware of any research demonstrating reversal of blockages using a diet that included nuts and seeds, as Fuhrman does.
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While all these doctors are still in agreement that oils (including like olive, and coconut have no place in a diet to reverse coronary artery disease, Fuhrman presents evidence that with oils being excluded, and building the diet on whole unprocessed plant foods, the addition of nuts and seeds makes a profound contribution -- as long as they are not eaten in amounts that cause overconsumption of calories. One of the things I loved about this book, was the detailed explanations of vast amounts of published research --much of it I was not familiar with. For example in the section about IGF-1 and Heart Disease, he not only explains how those with the highest blood levels of this growth hormone have increased cardiovascular mortality (and consumption of animal protein is established to increase blood levels of this hormone) but then goes on to describe a 2014 study that added more clarity by comparing low glycemic high in animal protein (low-carb/high protein) with diets low in both refined carbs and animal protein. 6000 people followed for 18 years found a four fold increase in cancer mortality and 75% increase in all-cause mortality. Researchers further isolated the negative effects of high protein as being ONLY from animal protein, not plant protein.
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